


Everything Else is Public Relations

by Tdtori



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Journalism, F/M, Slow Burn, Will update characters/tags/rating as chapters get written
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24306028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tdtori/pseuds/Tdtori
Summary: Former war correspondents, Roy Mustang (editor) and Riza Hawkeye (beat reporter), now cover the daily government and political life of Amestris at The Central Times. When, suddenly, a couple of teenagers waltz into their lives with a thread that can’t go untugged. Soon enough, the story unravels into something far larger than they ever imagined.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	Everything Else is Public Relations

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo boy here we go! This AU is like a child to me, especially after getting my B.A. in journalism and understanding the daily lives of those in a newsroom. This AU will take a while to finish, but I have no doubts it will finish! I'll try to update every 7-10 days. 
> 
> The title comes from a quote by George Orwell, "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations.” 
> 
> Dedicated to my partner-in-crime for life, Ryn. I love you.

Riza Hawkeye worked best under a deadline. There was a quote about how the more time a journalist has, the worse they write. And while she would never say no to a longer investigative piece, those were more up in the air. No, those were better suited for her editor. 

The sun has almost stopped pouring in through the windows and the sound of typewriters clacking has died down almost the second it turned five o’clock. Riza should’ve gone home two hours ago. Should’ve been taking her Black Hayate for a walk by now and unwinding with a glass of wine as she listened to the news and a stack of newspapers from the other parts of the country. 

No, instead she was at her desk, flipping through her notes about the latest policy that Fuhrer King Bradley was thinking about implementing. But her mind was drifting back, worming itself through her memories to find the sore spot. Suddenly, her work about the Ishvalan War of Extermination came to the forefront. She had been dispatched there as soon as the fighting had started. 

At the time, she was still a bit wide-eyed about the profession. Riza cared more about telling an interesting story rather than the right story. Those were the ones people loved to read, right? The gritty details about the blood-soaked sand and the dead bodies. Taking the Amestrian soldiers at their word. 

Her work was celebrated. Was talked about as an insight into the civil war. That her teaming up with editor Roy Mustang was a journalistic match made in heaven. Their bravery into going to the war zones, getting up close and personal with the soldiers, was commended. Hell, Mustang was given an award for his work. Was called one of the best war correspondents the country had seen. Riza wasn’t that much further behind him. 

Now, she couldn’t bear to look at the clips that hung in the newsroom. How people could still see that work as anything worth celebrating was beyond her. How people couldn’t find fault with how they talked and wrote about the Ishvalans was insulting. Hell, they should’ve been fired looking back at it.

“Hawkeye?” A familiar voice calls to her and then suddenly a hand is plucking her notes out of her hand. “Everything okay?”

She comes back to the present, looking over at the person. “Of course.” Her voice firm as she took a drink of her now-cold tea. When did it go cold? How long was she out of it? “Just putting the finishing touches on the Bradley piece.”

Mustang nods his head as he gives her notes back. “I called your name three times.” His head tilts a bit, eyes turning into something a bit softer. 

“I…” Riza starts, looking to the windows again. There was nothing to be seen. The sun had set a while ago and the streetlights were now gleaming. “I was just thinking.”

It didn’t come as a surprise anymore for Mustang to read her so well. As if he was meticulously combing through her as he did her work. By now he knew her ticks, her social cues. The words she uses as a crutch and the phrases she sometimes overseasons with. 

The typewriter clacking fills the air once more as she finishes the piece, taking the paper out and then scribbling on it a bit more. It’d have to be rewritten, of course. And probably rewritten once more when Havoc tells them that it’s too long for the page it’s supposed to be on. Despite Riza being friends with Jean Havoc, she was pretty sure that she had to at least get slightly on his nerves with her tendency to write long. 

(“I’m not a writer,” he’d drawl, fishing around for the whiskey bottle he hid in his desk as if anyone was actually going to take it from it. “But shouldn’t you know how to fit a story in a word limit, Hawkeye?”

Havoc would pour her two fingers of whiskey, despite her rule to not drink while in the newsroom, and look up at her with that knowing smile. 

Riza would take two sips before handing the glass back to him. “One day you’ll have to give me that extra inch or two for a story. Then you’ll be sorry.”)

Mustang glanced over the story once she handed it to him, grabbing one of the pens on her desk and crossing out an entire paragraph. “Unnecessary information,” he mused.

Some people at The Central Times would call Roy Mustang lazy. They’d take one look at his desk with papers piled on his desk, surrounding his typewriter, stacked on the chairs, and think he did nothing at all. They’d think how in the world did anything on his beats get finished. 

Hell, there were moments where’d be drinking before five p.m. and was interviewing someone over the phone. He was reckless and played with fire a little too much for Riza’s taste when it came to journalism.

However, not for a second did she believe that Mustang was lazy or didn’t care about his job or the work he helped produce. If anything, he cared far too much. She stayed late more often than not and saw him bring out that fine-tooth comb and brush through every story that landed on his desk. Saw him sit down with the reporters and work with them through a story. 

Of course, he did wade into somewhat...unobective reporting. When he’d let his personal views peek through for just a sentence. That’s when his stories landed on her desk and he’d push his hand through his hair asking her to pull out the comb now. 

Once he handed the paper back to her, she quickly types up the final version, standing up as she passes it off to him for good. “Try not to stay too late, Mustang. The desks don’t make the best resting places,” Riza says, slinging her bag over her shoulder. 

He smiles faintly at her as he put her story into a folder, sliding it into his own bag. “I have another hour in me, I think.” He looks out the window before back at her, sighing a bit. “You think Havoc would notice if I stole some of his whiskey?”  
  
Riza laughs quietly, heading for the door. “He’d kick your ass the moment he arrived in the morning.” Her hand is on the door, twisting the knob when he called to her once more. 

“Hawkeye, what would you think if I wanted to write an opinion piece?” Mustang asks, still standing by her desk with his hands in his pockets and he was bouncing just a bit on his heels. 

She pauses, turning around after a moment. “I’d be careful with that.”

He raises an eyebrow. 

“You have very strong opinions. Which isn’t a bad thing, but…,” Riza sighs, crossing her arms over her chest. “The minute you write an opinion piece it’ll come out in all your other writing.” Once you add in the fact that Mustang sometimes writes drunk, or while drinking, it makes it even easier for all those thoughts to tumble out. The last thing any of them needed was a lawsuit coming from the office of Fuhrer King Bradley. 

An amused expression crosses his face before he nods and turns to go back to his office. “Have a good night, Hawkeye.” 

* * *

Her walk home is peaceful, the streets are quiet for the most part. The streetlights provide enough of a glimmer to show Riza where she’s going.

500 steps from the building the sidewalk splits down a different street and 100 steps after that she makes a right turn, wait for the silence of no cars, and then crosses the street. She passes a line of stores and then the bar that she sometimes writes at (they give her half-off wine, which, thankfully, is still cheap enough for her to ethically accept) when she has writer’s block. 

All in all, it takes her about ten minutes if she keeps up her decent pace. Riza is not one for casual strolls, everything has a purpose. 

She’s immediately greeted by the black and white Shiba Inu who all but tries to tackle her to the laminate flooring in what could be considered her foyer. “I missed you, too, Black Hayate,” she chuckles a bit and scratches his ears before standing upright again and drops her keys in a bowl by the door. 

Journalists aren’t exactly a high paying group of people. Although she has tenure with The Times and has been awarded and praised by several organizations for her work. It’s enough cenz to pay her rent in the apartment that Rebecca Catalina once called “a shitty shoebox”. Enough cenz to buy food and take care of Black Hayate. To get her from point A to point B. 

The red wine flows freely into her glass and she sits down at the kitchen table because it’s really her only writing space. The typewriter takes up a good portion of the table, not that it matters. It’s not like she ever really gets visitors or people staying for dinner. 

She hasn’t written a long-form feature in years. Not that she doesn’t like writing them, digging deep into a story is what made Riza fall back in love with journalism. Real journalism. 

It’s just that interviewing people about the government, the politics, the state alchemists tugs on a thread she doesn’t want to unravel. It takes her back to that desert where she created her most sinister work. 

After two sips of red wine, Riza is able to pull herself away from the battlefield and back to her story. Sheets of paper with scribbles and markings on them lay in front of her. Interview transcripts. The story has already taken a couple of months and she’s barely written anything concrete. 

Really, the story was Mustang’s idea. The idea to take a look at the State Alchemist program. To interview as many current and former alchemists that would want to speak on the record. 

(“You sure you want to take this story on, Hawkeye?” Mustang asked after an editorial meeting once everyone had filed out. “I can do it, no problem.”

Riza nodded, her fingers spinning a pen between them. “Of course, I can.” Her voice was firm, almost insulted. He knew, of course. She had told him in a tent in Ishval while she was hunched over her typewriter, not able to look him in the eyes. Part of her wished that she had, then maybe she would’ve been able to tell what he was feeling. What he thought about her father. What he thought about her tattoo. Instead, he said nothing outside of a ‘sorry’ and took her right hand for a moment. 

The door to the meeting room finally shut completely and Mustang sat back down, motioning with his head for her to do the same. She stays standing, the pen still spinning on her right hand. “Seriously, I can just pick up the story. You know I can get anyone to talk––” 

“And I can’t?!” She sputtered out as the pen stopped spinning. “What the hell are you insinuating?” 

There’s a long and pregnant pause between the two of them. “I know...how you feel about these stories, Hawkeye. It’s not a knock to your skills as a reporter or writer,” Mustang said carefully, standing back up to face her. “But I _also_ know you are more than capable of handling this story.”

She studied him, his expression, his body language. Not that she needed to, she can tell from a country mile away if he’s bullshitting her. “Then why did you ask to take it?” 

“Because I’m your editor. It’s my job to look out for the beat writers.”) 

All-in-all Riza was able to interview five on the record, which was about four more than she thought she’d get. 

As she flips through her notes she comes across a thread that she forgot about. In her messy scribbles is “Youngest State Alchemist in History: Edward Elric” and then a number someone must’ve given her along the way. The idea of a _child_ joining the military breaks her heart. She keeps that sheet out so she can remember to talk to Mustang about it in the morning. 

Riza writes until her second glass is empty and she realizes she hasn’t had dinner. The clock reads that it’s closing in on eleven. Not her latest night by far, but still fairly late with only wine since she got home. “What’s the saying again, Black Hayate?” She mutters as she moves to the refrigerator and then the stove. “Write drunk, edit sober?” 

Black Hayate offers her a whine and a head tilt in reply. 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Mustang does both,” she chuckles to herself. 

Once she has actual food in her stomach, she takes the sheets out of the typewriter and reads over them, already cringing at some of her word choices and scribbling over them. 

Her writing still isn’t where she wants it to be. The war correspondent part of her life where she wrote whatever her editor told her to write. Every awful thing she could think of. Riza knows it’ll take time, a lot of unlearning and relearning. She knows she can never take back the things she wrote, that she played a part in how people think about Ishval and the Isvhalans. 

Maybe that’s why she keeps writing. 

* * *

Getting up in the morning is a bit of a struggle. Not that Riza’s a lightweight by any stretch of the imagination. But drinking on an empty stomach definitely did a number on her. 

She goes through the motions of pulling her jacket on and gathering the notes she left out. There’s a revolver on the table next to her front door and her hand hovers over it. After living in Central City for a handful of years now she’s never had to use it, but something in her gut tells her to take it. 

So, Riza straps the holster to her thigh underneath her pencil skirt and slides the gun into it. 

Her walk to work is always a struggle. The sidewalks are packed with everyone else trying to get to work, with kids trying to get to school. But these days Riza’s claustrophobic, it takes her back to getting caught in warzones, in being surrounded by soldiers and State Alchemists. 

There’s a _pop_ noise and Riza jumps, her hand on her thigh where the pistol lies as she looks around the crowd. Her shoulders close in and she lowers herself to the ground. Where was it? Her mind races as she tries to pinpoint where the noise came from.

Her breathing is sharp, eyes wide as she slowly pulls the revolver out of the holster. But her hands her shaking that her aim is going to be way off. There’s no way she can get a shot off. 

Someone bumps into her and looks down at her like she’s crazy. “What the fuck are you doing?” A random person asks her. “Put that fucking gun away.”

Everything seems to go quiet for a moment and Riza watches the people continue to go on their way with no cares in the world. As if nothing happened.

Slowly, Riza stands back up and puts the gun back in the holster.

Her hands still shake as she makes it to the newsroom. She prays that Mustang doesn’t see her, doesn’t notice her right now. The kitchen area is her only recluse at the moment. 

She can do this, she can go through the movements of making tea. That’s easy, something she does almost every single day. At least a few times a day. 

“Hey, Riza!” An awfully cheery voice appears out of nowhere. When she looks up she sees the smiling, always-kind looking face of Maes Hughes. “You’re usually earlier to making tea.”

Of course, he noticed, she thinks to herself. Riza grumbles a swear word under her breath as she lets the tea brew. “Just took me a little longer in getting here today.” Really, it wasn’t surprising that Maes noticed. Not just because Riza is the most punctual person at the paper, but Maes just _noticed_ things. 

Like when she lied about already having all the sources for a feature piece. Or when he noticed something bigger in what was seemingly just a small write-up. He was one of the best journalists at The Times, in Riza’s eyes. 

He looks at her with a funny look on his face, like he’s trying to find her tell. There wasn’t one, because Riza was telling the truth about how it took her longer. She reaches for her cup and takes a long drink that burns her throat. It calms her, brings her back to reality. 

“Why don’t we go to my office,” he says, already putting a hand on her shoulder and guiding her away. His office is slathered in photos of his wife and daughter and the three of them as a family. And the minute Riza takes a seat he hands her a photograph. “Look! We got these portraits done of Elicia before her birthday!” 

The photograph is of a small girl wearing the frilliest, princess-esque dress Riza has ever seen in her life. There are balloons behind her and a cake that has a ‘3’ in it in front of her. The girl herself is grinning ear to ear. 

Riza laughs quietly before handing the photograph back to Hughes. “She’s very cute.”

“I don’t know what I would do without them,” he says in an almost wistful manner. Almost melancholy. “Have you thought about children, Hawkeye?  
  
T

he question catches her off guard. Her personal life was never the subject of conversation, mostly because she was what some people (Rebecca) would consider “boring”. “I...no, I can’t say that I have.” 

“Well, you need to find yourself a husband first!” He exclaims before taking a drink of his coffee. 

There’s a knock on the door and there stands Mustang and Riza follows suit, almost standing immediately. As if she knows that he needs her for some story or to work through something else. 

“Roy!” Hughes’s face lits up once more and goes over to him, slapping him on the shoulder. Mustang looks less than amused. “Speaking of someone else who needs to find himself a spouse!”

Mustang grumbles and moves Hughes’s hand off his shoulder. While the two men were best friends, had been working together long before Riza got into journalism, his annoyance with Hughes was palatable almost every single day. But that was mostly due to his constant talking about his wife and daughter and not his journalism skills.

“Have you finished that feature about the latest in Liore?” Mustang asks, leaning against the doorframe. 

Hughes laughs and grabs a stack of papers from his desk, waving them in front of the other man. “Of course I have! Not that you’re my editor by any stretch of the imagination, Roy.”

Mustang cracks a small smile before looking over at Riza. “You can’t keep my beat writers all morning, Hughes. I have work I actually need Hawkeye to be doing.” 

Riza says her goodbyes to Hughes and follows Mustang into his own office. The difference between the two would have sent her into a shock if she wasn’t used to it by now. “Sorry, you know how Hughes can be,” she shrugs a bit before sitting down in the chair across from his desk. The sheet of paper that has “Youngest State Alchemist in History: Edward Elric” on it feels like it’s burning a hole through her jacket. 

She can’t stop thinking about a teenage boy joining the military. It couldn’t be truly his choice, could it? Would Fuhrer Bradley even allow someone that young to join? It’s a dumb question. As if Bradley has never done anything unethical before. As if he’s not a war criminal.

‘ _But aren’t you as well? In a way?’_ a voice in her head tells her, but she shakes it off for now.

There’s a worry inside of her for this boy she hasn’t even met, that she doesn’t know. There’s a story here because there’s one everywhere, but Riza’s not positive if she wants to write it. Profiles are usually celebratory, to talk about achievements. And she doesn’t think she could write something like that about a 15-year-old State Alchemist. 

He takes a long drink of his coffee and pulls just the slightest face at it, eyes squinting a bit as he forces himself to swallow it. His hand waves a bit as he takes another drink, handling it much better this go around. “It’s fine, don’t worry about that. So, you have any ideas for me?”  
  


They do this almost every single day, five days a week. While Riza does get a lot of stories by assignment, by Mustang handing them down to her. The other portion are her own ideas, her pitches. And, depending on the day, they shift through the other papers in the country to comb through their coverage to see if there’s something they could put their own spin on. “Yes, I do,” she says and she slaps down the piece of paper about Elric. 

“Already knew about that,” he says, almost dismissively. “I already have Breda writing about it.” 

There’s a sinking feeling in her that someone else got to the story first. Not that she’s mad, Breda is a damn good interviewer, but still. 

Mustang must be able to tell that something is off because he sighs and leans back a bit in his chair, balancing on the last two legs. “You were already working on the State Alchemist piece, Hawkeye. Which I think will be a much more important piece.” 

If Riza didn’t know him so well she’d accuse him of favoritism. “It’s almost done, by the way,” she says with a small smile. 

He returns it and although it’s barely noticeable, it reaches his eyes almost instantly. “I knew you’d be able to do it.”  
  


She laughs a bit. “It did take some encouragement from a certain editor.” Too many late nights in the newsroom than Riza cared for, to be honest, but it was there where she found some of her best work was done. And it was easy to have Mustang look over it since he practically lived in his office anyway. 

His hand waves a bit, this time outright dismissing her. “It’s the job of the editor to get the best work out of their reporters. Besides, I knew you’d be able to do it regardless of encouragement.” He pauses for a moment. “You ever go back and read the old stuff?”

Her jaw clenches when he mentions it and she calms herself down with a deep breath. They don’t talk about their old stuff. There are a number of things that they pointedly do not talk about. “No.” Her jaw still hasn’t unclenched.

“It’s how you know you’ve grown as a writer. All the little things you got wrong––”

Riza huffs. “We didn’t just get the little things wrong, Mustang. We weren’t just throwing commas or semicolons around where we shouldn’t have. We _shaped_ the public opinions about a whole group of people!” 

Mustang took another drink of his coffee while she ranted. “I am aware of that, Hawkeye. However, my point stands. You’ve come a long way.”

Maybe she should read it. Of course, it was going to be hard, if it was easy then that meant she had no remorse. No guilt over it. Besides, it would be a good reminder of what not to do, what specifically not to do. “So have you, Mustang.”

“There’s a lot further to go.” 

Despite not getting assigned the Elric story, she still calls his hotel room to set up a basic meeting. It was always good to have contacts and sources.

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me on tumblr @ rezahawkeye where I am more than happy to chat about royai or this AU!


End file.
